Milky Way

The Milky Way (a translation of the Latin Via Lactea, in turn derived from the Greek Galaxia Kyklos), sometimes referred to simply as "the Galaxy", is a barred spiral galaxy which forms part of the Local Group. Although the Milky Way is but one of millions of galaxies in the universe, the Galaxy has special significance to humanity as it is the home of the solar system, which is located near the Orion Arm. Democritus (460 BC - 370 BC) was the first known person to claim that Milky Way consists of distant stars.

External links

• The Milky Way Galaxy, SEDS Messier pages
• MultiWavelength Milky Way NASA site with images and VRML models
• An Atlas of the Universe
• Proposed Ring around the Milky Way
• Milky Way spiral gets an extra arm New Scientist.com
• http://www.solstation.com/x-objects/gal2arc.jpg
• Possible New Milky Way Spiral Arm Sky and Telescope .com
• http://skyandtelescope.com/mm_images/6829.jpg